PM bemoans 'extraordinary' CEO salaries

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the pay packets of Australian chief executives are "extraordinarily high" after new figures showed they have swollen to their fattest since before the global financial crisis.

CEOs at the nation's 100 biggest companies took home an average $6.2 million of "realised pay" in 2017, the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) study has found.

Domino's Pizza CEO Don Meij topped the list of the highest-paid CEOs, with a realised pay of $36.84 million, after he exercised options to acquire shares worth $35.7 million.

"That seems a hell of a lot - they'd have to be very productive," Mr Turnbull said of the pizza boss's salary.

"As someone who most of his life has worked in businesses that I've only owned or been a partner in, I find the amount, the pay rates for people working for a lot of big public-listed companies extraordinarily high," he told 3AW radio on Tuesday.